


bodyache, or the audacity of happiness

by davidfincher



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Established Relationship, F/M, Family Issues, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, Loneliness, Non-Linear Narrative, Physical and emotional trauma, Porn with Feelings, Relationship Study, Sexual Content, merry christmas ya filthy reylo shippers, my christmas gift to this fandom: more fucking angst!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 06:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13141179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/davidfincher/pseuds/davidfincher
Summary: (i wanna know what’s your quietest feeling)it’s the greatest, cruelest irony, she thinks.moments of intimacy from the force bond.





	bodyache, or the audacity of happiness

**Author's Note:**

> directly inspired by [bodyache](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbqcXnTt-7o) by purity ring. my reylo playlist has been in heavy rotation recently.

_you said, you said, “turn the lights down, i want to be alone”_

 

He was crying. 

Rey ran as fast as her legs could carry her through the infinite darkness, heart pounding at her temples. 

In a moment she was there, lightyears away, close enough that the atoms of her very being gravitated towards him.

She thought about how she was born in sand and strife. She didn’t know about, she had no use for love, softness, belonging, accceptance—

Rey came to a stop at the dark expanse of his bed. His tear-streaked face shone through the curtain of his hair, pale and beautiful. In her chest, a flame came to life. His breathing evened.

“What do you need?” she asked, reverent. Their existence is a contradiction.

Ben reached out for her face as if she was sacred. 

That night, she understood. 

 

_i read, your head away_

_i couldn’t stand how it pleaded_

_i needed to take_

 

Ben felt like a child, though he would never admit it in front of her. He had a suspicion she already knew.

He holds her in the loud quiet of his chambers in a Star Destroyer, the nearby moons bathing them both in light, stroking her hair.

From the moment the tips of their fingers first touched that night on Ahch-To, he knew he would never be able to live without her ever again. From then on, his skin would be craving hers forever.

In the throne room, while fighting the Praetorian guards, she was inside of his head, their bond solidifying itself into something painfully real. They mirrored each other in movement and thought, a solid unit, one in every sense.

Ben, in foolishness and vanity, identified it as a selfish hunger, a need to consume every single last crumb and dreg. It wasn’t until after that he realized it was an incompleteness nothing else could fulfill.

 

_take a break, take me down, take me down there_

_i want to stare at the tears, how they watered your years_  

 

Ben called it the audacity of happiness. That is what they share.

Secretly, she knew he must have been a poet in his youth. Before everything happened.   

“I call it that because it’s so incredibly foreign,” he explains, large hand in hers, turning it over and over, tracing the thin blue-green veins. “So much so that it feels… wrong. Like we don’t deserve to have it.”

It breaks her heart all over again.

“All my life, happiness was… an extra portion. A new hiding place. A generous offworlder at the outpost. Happiness was survival. It’s all I’ve ever known. I still don’t know how to separate the two,” she adds, looking down at their naked bodies, shadowed in patches.

In response, silent flashes of his childhood played in the back of her mind. There was so much of Han and Leia bitterly arguing, at different times, places, ages. Ben, still small, hiding in a smuggling crevice within the Falcon. Him feeling awkward and alone at a political gala, sweating in uncomfortable clothing. The first night Snoke appeared to him in his dreams, terrifying him to his very core. 

To him, love was a lie. The oldest lie ever told. 

Rey laid her head down on his broad chest, counting his heartbeats.

 

_you sweat, and you bled_

_i couldn’t look ‘cause your body, your body would shake_

 

Rey remembers the way he bled on Starkiller Base. The way her saber cut through his face, the sheer strength of the blow sending him backwards. The scar is a permanent reminder of their roles, the parts they were meant to play in this war.

It’s the greatest, cruelest irony, she thinks. They were never meant to find comfort in each other’s arms, lips, bodies. There are nights where her anxiety and insecurity chokes her, flinging her into the farthest reaches of space with no air to breathe. Cold.

Somehow, his arms always find her.

When she sees that scar, and all the other ones mapped onto Ben’s body, terrible and deep, raised and discolored trenches from years of fighting and flagellation, she feels tears well up in her throat. Too much blood spilled, like the red salt fields of Crait. 

They fight, occasionally, hurtful words spilling over like some acrid liquid that cannot be contained. Fists fly, nails scratch. Ben would slam her into a wall, crushing his lips onto hers. She’d kiss back, all teeth and bite. Eventually, they would meld together again.

They would never, could never draw blood. It was always meant to be.

 

_and you feared a lonely death_

_like a lake leaves you alone in her depths_

 

“You remind me of him, sometimes,” Ben remarks, observing her train with her old quarterstaff.

Rey followed the steps, keeping her breathing centered. “Of who?”

“Luke.”

She stops in her tracks, looking back at him. His eyes are inscrutable. She resists the urge to dig deeper into his mind, to comprehend his thoughts at that moment. Patience was a virtue she was already lacking in.

“Tatooine is a desert planet that used to be ruled by Hutts,” she replies matter-of-factly, continuing the motions, determined not to break stride again. “I suppose it’s a lot like Jakku.”

“You know that isn’t what I mean.” His voice is lightly amused, as a teacher about to chide a student for making a redundant statement.

“What are you trying to tell me?” Her blows become sharper, her quarterstaff slicing through the air. Precision in anger.

An intake of breath. A slow release. This wasn’t the time. “He told me once that he thought he would die on that planet,” he says.

“That makes two of us.”

 

_i, i, i lied, now i’m lying awake_

_i, i, i cried, ‘til my body ached_

 

Finding solace in Ben’s body was inevitable. It is what she has to think in order to reconcile the past with the present.

On top of him, she has control. Steady as the rhythm of her lightsaber forms, pleasure seeping into every pore.

She wants him to know she loves him, but the words can never, will never come out. Instead, she tries to inject it into every move and touch, the sweat mingling between them proof of her devotion.

His shoulders tremble, and it reminds her of when he cried that first time, his normally-imposing form wracked with sobs, and she remembers a time when she promised herself never to cry in front of him again.

It is a promise she knows she cannot keep.

His mouth finds her neck, and she forgets.

 

_i want to know what’s your_

_i want to know what’s your quietest feeling_

_i saw you break, i saw you unreeling_

 

It felt like he was melting into her. Limb by limb, they were undone.

Inside her, rocking back and forth, whispering mystical nothingness into the shell of her ear, he dares to dream about a future that cannot come true. Solid and clear, she said.

It terrifies him, how much he believes in this future, the lengths he would go to in order for it to come true. She knows this. She knows his everything. His beginning and his end. He channels his fear and hope into every thrust, every kiss. 

When she reaches climax, Ben wants to stay in that moment forever. Rey cries out his name in the silence of his chambers, heavy and wet, and it is everything he ever needed.

She begs him to empty himself inside of her, and it feels like his body is about to burn to a crisp in the hottest supernova. He thinks that if anything in the galaxy is worth worshipping, it is her.

They lay there, muscles twitching, and he laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally supposed to be a part of my ongoing series of force bond scenes, [we need a forest fire](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13076349/chapters/29913744). but i thought that it deserved to stand alone.
> 
> feel free to drop me a line if you have any reylo prompts i could fill. it seems like every time i set out to write something i end up with another thing that's completely different. i swear i'll write straight up smut for them one day!!!


End file.
